Fissures – The Long Winter Demos You might remember, back in 2013, Slice the Cake’s singer releasing one song – “I” –, under the Fissures moniker; a sort of progressive, atmospheric post-metal track. The rest of it would not be released until 24 October 2017 as The Long Winter Demos, nine tracks and one hour long. The whole album is quite good and really promising as far as being a demo. I suggest you take a look!

Ni – Dedoda I got really excited when I saw something about a new release from Ni, one of my favourite French avant-garde prog outfits… Until I realized that Dedoda was from another avant-garde prog act, from Austria this time. What’s a uncanni is how the two bands’ approaches are similar in style and taste, hence how Dedoda fooled me at first. On top of their oddly shaped riffs and measures, Austrian Ni also include bouts of singing and chanting, all a bit careless and free. Unfortunately, however, they can only be compared negatively to French Ni, which is still my favourite by far, but Dedoda is not a bad record by any mean!Lou Kelly – ScumlordsScumlords is the latest experiment of Luke “Lou” Kelly. It’s quite different from anything I’ve heard from him until now, and I have to say it doesn’t captivate me as much as Hooligans did, for example. But that’s of course purely personal taste. This new one is more alternative, accessible, yet still retains some of the eccentricities of the musician. The album is a pretty fun time!Playgrounded – In Time with Gravity Greek progressive rock band Playgrounded recently release this new album through Freia Music. Their music is a difficult one to label, being deeply rooted in progressive rock, but also featuring a hefty amount of post-rock and electronic music elements. In Time with Gravity is a fascinating album full of odd rhythmic subdivisions, low keyboard and bass riffs, reverberating guitar chords, and electronic interludes. A very good listen.Frequency Eater – Finite States Frequency Eater is the side project of Ikea Mutilation Manual’s Owen. This one is much less hectic, and would fit under the broad progressive metal umbrella. Although it also includes some degree of post-metal to its compositions, the band’s instrumental prog tracks are pretty good and gripping. Hopefully we get to hear more from the guys of IMM in the future!Golden Hymns Sing ‘Hurrah’ – Golden Hymns Sing ‘Jobless & Worried’ New York’s post-rock scene is a pretty well developed one, and this new album is only the confirmation of that. Somewhere between rock and metal, all post, Jobless & Worried is emotionally and musically intense, and the six tracks on the record will give you ample time and room to sink into the band’s thick atmosphere and politically charged philosophy.Zenxienz – Cosmosis EDM is a seldom covered genre, here, but Zenxienz makes it worth mentioning. Apparently the leader of a so-called weird EDM movement, Zenxienz will release Cosmosis on 17 November. The album is a refreshing experience from both my usual experience with organic or metallic weirdness and my unfortunate encounters with generic EDM. It includes some drill and bass beats, some folk music influences, and psychedelic qualities as well. It’s not an album that will strike most of you as being weird, but it will most likely be a nice time still.Cryptic Fog – Staring through the Veil Cryptic Fog’s technical black metal riffs drive their debut album home. Staring through the Veil is made of five tracks that sit somewhere between black and death and thrash metal, unrelenting and unforgiving.Keith Price – Double Quartet

The electro-jazz post-rock of Keith Price is in full display on this album, which came out in June. It’s a bit hard to classify, but I’d say that jazz fusion is the main driver, here; lengthy jazz compositions with varying amount of electronic instruments are separated by atmospheric post-rock interludes, and the whole thing somehow doesn’t sound like a mishap. It’s a pretty good album, but I found it quite unremarkable, unfortunately; good, but not great.